Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

As a parent whose kids are at the ‘wander the mall on their own’ age, I do worry about headlines like “Screams heard before mall stabbing in Auckland”.It’s terrifying that young people are carrying weapons; it’s terrifying that they’re so brazen about using them, it’s terrifying that Police still appear powerless to stop youth offenders.One of our kids asked us the other day why the country feels less safe these days, why there's so much violence. And the question made me sad, because it’s not how we grew up. Walking the malls and streets at night felt safe, doing it in broad daylight wasn’t even in question. But these days parents are rightly thinking twice about their young people heading off to the mall with their mates unsupervised.And even the teens themselves are thinking twice about it. And what worries me is that as the bar dips lower and lower on social responsibility these days, and public behaviour gets worse, how much are we just sleepwalking into accepting it? Why are we putting up with more aggr